Echoing what others said, I don't really care if women want to serve in combat arms in general. But I don't ever want to have to compromise the mission because of different standards or drama.

It reminds me of when we were checking out some tents from Camp Victory and they gave us GP Mediums from the Air Force, which had '6 person lift' written on them instead of '4 man lift'. I don't have extra squad members to accomplish the same task, I had 3 other engineers and myself.

I'd fuck on the first date but truckers usually just want their salads tossed

Also

barbudo posted:

So does this mean women will be serving as Infantry platoon leaders in the USMC or just that they can attend the course?

e: Also, it seems weird to me that a woman can lead an infantry platoon but can't serve in one as enlisted.

They always start from the top with gender integration. A female private would get eaten alive. A female captain is better suited to start the change. Get senior female leadership in place to start and roll out juniors later on. It's the same way surface ships in the navy did it and the way submarines are doing it now.

Nillerz posted:

dude grunts are already a bunch of horny, mistreated adolescents and to add females to the mix will create so many surprise sex charges they're going to have to start building new brigs. im sorry, but in my time in all i saw was females getting treated better, promoted faster, and held to lower standards. you can turn a blind eye when combat is not involved, but peoples lives are at risk here.

if they do this they should make female only and male only platoons and keep them separate.

Vasudus posted:

Echoing what others said, I don't really care if women want to serve in combat arms in general. But I don't ever want to have to compromise the mission because of different standards or drama.

It reminds me of when we were checking out some tents from Camp Victory and they gave us GP Mediums from the Air Force, which had '6 person lift' written on them instead of '4 man lift'. I don't have extra squad members to accomplish the same task, I had 3 other engineers and myself.

The SMART-T came with its own camo setup (and this was the first piece of new non-snag camo we got), and for some reason the bundle which weighed all of 50 pounds was marked FOUR PERSON LIFT on all four sides.

So one day after a fieldex I'm packing poo poo up and I lift it up on the tailgate, turn to the new 25L from our section and tell her "FOUR PERSON- OR ONE loving MAN!!!". She rolled her eyes. Our 1SG walks by. I get smoked.

Well there's your problem. The US military treats people like poo poo and expects some sort of warrior-monk in return. And then tells you that it's a privilege for you to be in uniform, like you should be lucky for the poo poo treatment that you DO get.

So basically it seems like there's two different ways to run an infantry; treat everyone like animals and little kids and make them rabid oohrah devil dogs who are always in regs and salute and have no problem taking that hill but then spend all their spare time raping women, committing crimes, and being unemployed when they get out. And then there's the European way.

xaarman posted:

How is the women on subs thing working out?

Hasn't happened yet. The first female sub officers are still going through Power School.

I read in an interview somewhere that the CMC acknowledges that it will be a very low percentage of females who are cut out to be grunts, his words were something like "Take a room full of 100 females, maybe five of them are perfect to be grunts."

Rekinom posted:

Well there's your problem. The US military treats people like poo poo and expects some sort of warrior-monk in return. And then tells you that it's a privilege for you to be in uniform, like you should be lucky for the poo poo treatment that you DO get.

So basically it seems like there's two different ways to run an infantry; treat everyone like animals and little kids and make them rabid oohrah devil dogs who are always in regs and salute and have no problem taking that hill but then spend all their spare time raping women, committing crimes, and being unemployed when they get out. And then there's the European way.

interesting

Yes but it seems the European way would make us invade countries alot less than we do and you see this is something that many people in America do not find so compelling.

grover posted:

History doesn't really agree with this. Europe at (relative) peace is an extremely recent thing.

The "European approach" (or whatever you want to call it) to soldiering is a relatively recent thing as well...I don't think Napoleon's Imperial Guard were unionized or held to the same professional standard as modern Swedish infantry or whatever.

Godholio posted:

A lot of them are also conscription-based, too.

Actually, most of Europe has done away with conscription. Almost all of the former Warsaw Pact countries have done away with it since the end of the Cold War; the only Western European countries that still have it are Norway, Finland, Denmark, Switzerland, and Austria.

Armyman25 posted:

I love how you state the woman is in the wrong for having sex in a combat zone but not the man.

How far a drag is dragging a guy to safety? How much weight for how much distance?

I never said she was in the wrong. But having sex with 3 guys on a loving 30 man FOB is stupid. Especially when everyone is going to know about it being that it's a loving 30 man loving platoon base and guy gossip worst than loving females.

But I'm all for females in the infantry. I have no problems with it. As long as they can pull their weight. I was bitching and moaning a few weeks back in the Get Swole thread about the sorry SSG's in the infantry ALC that can't PT worth poo poo and are fat asses that I think should be kicked the hell out of the infantry.

Armyman25 posted:

iyaayas01 posted:

Actually, most of Europe has done away with conscription. Almost all of the former Warsaw Pact countries have done away with it since the end of the Cold War; the only Western European countries that still have it are Norway, Finland, Denmark, Switzerland, and Austria.

Rekinom posted:

Rekinom posted:

Well there's your problem. The US military treats people like poo poo and expects some sort of warrior-monk in return. And then tells you that it's a privilege for you to be in uniform, like you should be lucky for the poo poo treatment that you DO get.

So basically it seems like there's two different ways to run an infantry; treat everyone like animals and little kids and make them rabid oohrah devil dogs who are always in regs and salute and have no problem taking that hill but then spend all their spare time raping women, committing crimes, and being unemployed when they get out. And then there's the European way.

interesting

im not in combat or even the army but i will think about this for a long time i promise

I don't get why people think that women can't perform in combat. Plenty of armies have used female soldiers in desperate times, and they performed very effectively. You notice that when does a military break down traditions and let in new types of people, when the poo poo is on the line.

The Israeli and Russian armies let in females when the going was desperate and they served with great distinction. We let in Japanese and Black troops in world war II because we needed them, and they served with distinction.

The problem isn't that women can't be effective, it's just that people are poisoning the argument to try and obscure the real point, which is that they just don't want them in combat arms. If the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had gone on for longer at surge troop levels we wouldn't be having this argument because we would have already done it.

If someone could tell me a example of a female or integrated unit that has been trained in combat running around like a bunch of school girls and getting everyone killed, then you might have a point. Instead everyone is just giving anecdotal stories of hurr durr women can't do stuff that they haven't been trained for.

Edit: And anyone complaining about the physical aspect of things is dumb, we let dudes who are barely over 5 feet into the infantry, and yet we don't debate if we should let people under 5'6'' or something in. Yes, a little 5'4'' woman probably can't keep up with most of the infantry stuff. Guess what, she wouldn't make it through the training and get re classed. Hey probably 9/10 females would get re classed, but you can't compare most females in the army today, who enlisted for and came in expecting to do non-combat jobs, with women who enlist and are fully committed and trained to do combat roles.

SerCypher posted:

I don't get why people think that women can't perform in combat. Plenty of armies have used female soldiers in desperate times, and they performed very effectively. You notice that when does a military break down traditions and let in new types of people, when the poo poo is on the line.

The Israeli and Russian armies let in females when the going was desperate and they served with great distinction. We let in Japanese and Black troops in world war II because we needed them, and they served with distinction.

The problem isn't that women can't be effective, it's just that people are poisoning the argument to try and obscure the real point, which is that they just don't want them in combat arms. If the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan had gone on for longer at surge troop levels we wouldn't be having this argument because we would have already done it.

If someone could tell me a example of a female or integrated unit that has been trained in combat running around like a bunch of school girls and getting everyone killed, then you might have a point. Instead everyone is just giving anecdotal stories of hurr durr women can't do stuff that they haven't been trained for.

Edit: And anyone complaining about the physical aspect of things is dumb, we let dudes who are barely over 5 feet into the infantry, and yet we don't debate if we should let people under 5'6'' or something in. Yes, a little 5'4'' woman probably can't keep up with most of the infantry stuff. Guess what, she wouldn't make it through the training and get re classed. Hey probably 9/10 females would get re classed, but you can't compare most females in the army today, who enlisted for and came in expecting to do non-combat jobs, with women who enlist and are fully committed and trained to do combat roles.

Women can certainly perform in combat. That's only a slight issue that training can overcome- the problem is conditioning the rest of the military (in combat arms' case, the other 99%) to accept the fact that times are changing is the problem. That's something that training cannot just work out. It's going to be an uphill battle that has to be handled carefully.

Vasudus posted:

Women can certainly perform in combat. That's only a slight issue that training can overcome- the problem is conditioning the rest of the military (in combat arms' case, the other 99%) to accept the fact that times are changing is the problem. That's something that training cannot just work out. It's going to be an uphill battle that has to be handled carefully.

That's I'm saying, everyone is trying to say "it's not like desegregating the army" as if the problem isn't with the army's culture (which it is) it's that women are weak little crybabies who will gently caress everyone and ruin unit discipline.

I challenge anyone to argue the fact that women trained and held to the same standards as men, and having a command climate that treats them fairly will be a net positive for the army and the country as a whole.

Obviously this wouldn't be easy. Like you said though the easy part is the part everyone thinks will be the hardest, the training and and such of female soldiers. The hard part is that just like desegregating people want to resist what will be a net long term benefit because it might cause problems in the short term.

Except that what we're saying is that women have never been held to the same standard as men in the military before, so why should this be any different? Even though lives will be no poo poo at stake. Discipline breaking down is a much bigger problem in true combat than at some finance section.

Also, please explain why you are so certain that it would be a "net long term benefit".

Our Gay Apparel posted:

Except that what we're saying is that women have never been held to the same standard as men in the military before, so why should this be any different? Even though lives will be no poo poo at stake. Discipline breaking down is a much bigger problem in true combat than at some finance section.

It will be different if it is ordered to be different. Black people were never held to any standard in the military because they weren't in it, but then they were. Women aren't held to the same standard because that's what the regulations say, if you change the regulations than they will be.

Also yeah a lot of women can't even meet their less stringent PT and weight standards they have now. However remember most of them, like most men in the military right now are a product of the lowered standards and unwillingness to kick people out that was caused by the wars. My unit is shedding people left and right, men and women, for weight, PT, drugs, you name it. Women aren't the only ones who got hand waived on PT tests or got their numbers fudged for weight and tape.

You need to look at the future, rather than the past. Everyone was going poo poo crazy a year ago about repealing DADT, and oh no the gays. Yet, really it wasn't nearly as big of a deal as people thought it would be.

Women in combat arms will only be as painful and disruptive as combat arms decides to make it.

Our Gay Apparel posted:

Also, please explain why you are so certain that it would be a "net long term benefit".

What was the long term benefit of allowing black people in the army?

If it's not broke don't fix it, right guys?

We did pretty good in WWII with mostly all white people, why change a winning strategy?!?!

We don't want to have to worry about problems with racial tension and discipline! This is life or death!

All sarcasm aside women in combat arms is going to go one of two ways.

A: There will be women who can hack the training and hardship and physically and mentally to the job as well as the average male soldier.

B: Women just won't be able to do it, and the double standard will continue for women. However them being in combat arms units this will cause danger and resentment as combat units will be burdened with females who can't physically or mentally do combat tasks.

Some guys think A (me), some of you think B. If it turns out to be B, well not really sure what to do about that.

I'm just saying if it turns out A is true, then integrating them into combat jobs won't be any different then integrating black guys or gay guys.

Our Gay Apparel posted:

Also, please explain why you are so certain that it would be a "net long term benefit".

It would certainly increase the stake the average American has in foreign conflicts if their sons and daughters have an equal chance of getting done in by an IED. Not that it never happens now, but giving all members of society an equal chance to be exposed to direction action combat situations will also give all members of society something to think about before deciding to invade the next Iraq.

The new APFT is supposed to do away with gender differences. I'd say that's a step in the right direction toward having the same standard for both sexes.

Their sons and daughters already do have an equal chance. I believe 88M has a pretty high female population. But the all-volunteer force pretty much ensures that America does not give a gently caress about going to war. It's an unfortunate fact, and honestly one of the most depressing and disturbing facts about America. It really says a lot about our population.

And I cannot honestly see any APFT doing away with different gender standards.

Our Gay Apparel posted:

Their sons and daughters already do have an equal chance. I believe 88M has a pretty high female population. But the all-volunteer force pretty much ensures that America does not give a gently caress about going to war. It's an unfortunate fact, and honestly one of the most depressing and disturbing facts about America. It really says a lot about our population.

And I cannot honestly see any APFT doing away with different gender standards.

Do you feel if they did do away with different standards, females wouldn't be able to pass it?

The question isn't if it can happen, of course it can. The question is what would be the result, essentially what I posted above. Are females essentially too weak to do the same thing male soldiers are expected to do. You seem to be saying yes, which may be true. I'm just trying to boil this down to the essential issue.

Edit: I'm not arguing that females in general are as strong/fast as males. Obviously that just isn't true. I'm just saying that there might be females who are strong/fast enough and if there are, and they want to try and make it in combat arms, we should let them try.

psydude posted:

Well, I do believe that any genderless fitness test should use pass/fail rather than a scoring scale.

I didn't think of that, makes sense. I think that's part of the problem, the test is being used these days for a promotion/how hooah are purpose rather than what it's for. Really what it should measure is can this soldier physically meet the demands of combat, instead of it's numbers being used to stoke a senior NCO's ego.

Our Gay Apparel posted:

And I cannot honestly see any APFT doing away with different gender standards.

The different standards for the APFT shouldn't be done away with unless you agree that the different standards based on age should also be done away with.

The reason the scores change based on age is because there is a recognized difference between a young person's body and an older person's. The differences in the APFT scales for men and women is taking into account the difference between a man's body and a woman's.

The APFT is theoretically a measure of physical fitness, not a measure of ability to perform as a soldier. It has no specific correlation of the ability of the person taking the test to perform any particular task in the military. Unfortunately it's the only standardized test we have.